


Far, Far Too Late

by Dr_Fumbles



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:47:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26665399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dr_Fumbles/pseuds/Dr_Fumbles
Summary: They found her on a world without a Stargate, and brought her back to a world where she did not belong. (This is the shorter, more lyrical version of this story; I might try a longer narrative. And if you have any ideas where this should go after, let me know, because I don't know what you do with someone who comes back to a world that's moved on without them.)
Kudos: 4





	Far, Far Too Late

They found her on a world without a Stargate, fifteen years after the Replicators said she had died. Left in a stasis chamber all that time, she hadn’t aged a day. But when she saw faces she knew, it was hard seeing the grayed hair and crows feet and wedding bands and knowing that they had all moved on without her. This was not her world, not her time.  
  
John and Carson (explaining Dr Beckett took some time) came to tell her that her mother and her dog had died years ago, as had Simon Wallace, and well, pretty much everyone on Earth who had known her well enough to come to her memorial service. (In truth, it had not been a great number of people, but John couldn't tell her that.) There was a headstone in Arlington National Cemetery where no one had placed flowers in over a decade. She asked about her father's pocket watch, but without a clear inheritor, all those things that once belonged to the Weir family passed into state hands to be auctioned off; nothing of her past life remained. John tried to cheer her up by showing her pictures of the children he shared with his wife, Teyla.  
  
She said the requisite “I’m happy for you, John” but no one believed it; they all knew Elizabeth Weir had loved Colonel John Sheppard far more than she should. It was his way of letting her down gently, before she could pin her hopes of building a new life around him, the last artefact of her life still within reach.  
  
After that day he didn’t come back to visit her much, afraid of making the situation worse. Teyla and Jennifer were busy with work and children, Rodney had never had much time for anyone, Ronon wasn't much for talking, and seeing Carson back from the dead made her uncomfortable. She slept alone in her assigned room, avoided the stares of the thousands of strangers now inhabiting Atlantis, and tried to figure out how an iPad worked. Then Mr Woolsey arrived to tell her that she would be going back to Earth to start the paperwork necessary to bring her back to life.  
  
She almost laughed in his face; what life? Even worse than Atlantis was the prospect of Earth, burial ground of all her family and past friends. Under the pretense of packing up the few borrowed clothes and donated toiletries that constituted all her world possessions, Elizabeth went back to the small guest room what was her ‘home’ and swallowed the entire bottle of sleeping pills she’d been prescribed to get through the long nights (and frankly, the long days).  
  
What she didn’t know was that the new tracker she’d been given also sent real-time vitals to the infirmary, and when her O2 sats dropped below 90% alarms started to sound, sending a full code response team to her door.  
  
She woke to the image of her former friends sitting or standing around the curtained area, but she was not happy to see them. Ripping the IV from her arm and nasal canula away, she screamed for them to ‘Get out!’ When they held her down and begged for cooperation, she only screamed louder until Jennifer injected her with a sedative.  
  
The next time she woke, she was alone, her wrists strapped to the bed. Her heart ached to the point that it felt like a half-ton anvil had been placed on her sternum. Turning her face into the pillow, she tried to muffle her sobs so that no one would come. But Carson heard anyway, leaning close to her and calling her ‘luv’ in that familiar Scottish brogue as he gently wiped away the tears and told her that everything would be okay.  
  
But it was all just meaningless nonsense to her and she refused to say anything back. Closing her eyes, she let the feeling of gravity pull her into the bed, imagined that it would swallow her, and remove her from this nightmare worse than any of Oberoth's tortures. A change in the ‘beep’ on the monitor made the surgeon look up and frown. Watching the unusual read on the EKG, he asked a nurse to help him move the patient under the Ancient scanner.  
  
Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy, more commonly known as broken heart syndrome. There wasn’t an easy solution, and Carson’s own heart ached at his inability to help. Without any family to tell in either galaxy, he told their friends, because someone needed to know Elizabeth’s own heart was failing to beat out of profound sadness. After all this time in stasis, her own mind was killing her, and her deactivated nanites could not be called upon to mend it.  
  
They tried to get Dr Fielding to talk with her, but that was how Elizabeth found out Kate Heightmeyer died shortly after her own disappearance on Assuras. So Dr Fielding, despite all of his efforts, received only a ‘Go away, please’ which was an improvement over the screaming. It was among the few words anyone could get out of her any more; she was the ghost who lived in the back of the infirmary, occasionally heard to wail.  
  
How long she would have remained was cut short when Earth sent a message that they wanted her back, to be studied at the Groom Lake facility for long-term cryo-use and systemic nanite infection. They had been patient for months, but now project plans were being held up. To say that Drs Beckett and Keller led a mutiny might be hyperbolic, but in no uncertain terms was it made clear that Elizabeth was not leaving Atlantis in her current state. Many bitter messages were exchanged back and forth, debating the future of what was essentially an unperson, as far as Earth was concerned.  
  
Not wanting to start a war with Atlantis, the USS _Hammond_ one day slipped into orbit and beamed Elizabeth aboard. They were already leaving the system before anyone put together what had happened. Maintaining radio silence, the _Hammond_ ignored the hails (and frankly, quite threatening messages) from Atlantis, drugging their cargo and securing her away in nanite-dampening cell until they reached Earth.  
  
The thing they beamed into Area 51 was only alive because the _Hammond_ had borrowed a ZPM for speed and efficiency, making the crossing in four days rather than eighteen. While they had been expecting a fight, the researchers were greeted with a starving, dehydrated woman with congestive heart failure. With IV fluids, a feeding tube, and the quick placement of a pacemaker, they saved their lab rat; but if they were expecting to get a cooperative subject after such generous considerations, they were sorely disappointed. She wouldn’t speak to any of them, wouldn’t meet their eyes, wouldn’t even hold a pencil or type responses. What little she ate or drank was only to make the nurses go away, who were happy to leave her alone.   
  
As a test subject, she was an absolute failure because there was no way to distinguish between the effects of the nanites, the decade-plus of stasis, and her own damaged psyche. What they could tell was that her nanites were not healing her cardiomyopathy, run down and emitting no power signature. When they surgically removed a small section from her basal ganglia, the nanites shriveled and died with the biological cells.   
  
Disgusted at the failure of their respective projects, and not interested in providing palliative care until her heart finally gave out, ‘Elizbeth Lidoe’ was deposited in a nursing home on the outskirts of a little town called Gold Field. She was not the first ‘Lidoe’ admitted there, as the US Military had a longstanding agreement with the owners of Golden Rest Home that certain ‘retired personnel’ would, from time to time, be rehomed there, fees and medical paid in full up front, no questions asked.  
  
None of the staff, though, were sure why someone decades younger than the rest of their patients had been left with them. It had been several years since a Lidoe was in Golden Rest, and he was so old he died within a month (though it was hard to tell his real age from all of the scar tissue that covered his body). The Air Force Captain who wheeled this young woman through the front doors was obviously no relation despite his claims of siblinghood (unless one of them was adopted), and he stayed barely long enough to sign the paperwork and leave behind a slim folder of information with a government check for $25,000. The charge nurse was the only person to whom he said ‘good-bye’, as if he’d already forgotten who arrived with him.  
  
Hardly able to hide her disgust for the Captain, Miss Jackie spoke kindly to the new resident whose green eyes stared out at nothing, assuring Elizabeth that she would like Golden Rest, that is was a better place to end up than a lot of other assisted living facilities and she would even have her own room with cable TV. Miss Jackie had been at Golden Rest for over thirty years, and seen a lot more of the Lidoes coming through than the younger staff. Each one always seemed an unhappy case, and Jackie could never quite forgive the government for whatever it was they did to these people. This poor kid, as she thought of Elizabeth (hardly older than her own daughter), was riddled with scars, bruises, needle marks, and had part of her hair shaved away.

Miss Jackie spent her lunch hour trimming Elizabeth's untamed curls, assuring her when she was finished that she looked much better, and no one would notice the surgical spot. Before leaving the room, the nurse picked up a pillow and put it in Elizabeth's arms, giving her something to hug other than herself, knowing from long experience that it would alleviate some of the chest pain.  
  
In a home full of the sad and forgotten, Elizabeth seemed to be the saddest. Though she could walk on her own, she never talked to anyone; and while she could feed herself without a shaking hand, it was without any zeal or recognition of what was going into her mouth. The TV in her room was never on, and she never left it unless one of the orderlies came to walk her out to the dining room or day room. Often they would just find her in a chair, starring at nothing, with silent tears running down her pale face, so someone would stop for a little while and hold her hand until the tears had dried.

The arrival of Mrs Arthur seemed to spark a little life. The old widow had thick dark hair she insisted on keeping dyed, a sweet countenance, and a silver pocket watch attached to her robe, her husband's favorite accessory. Elizabeth could be found frequently at Mrs Arthur's side, listening to the woman prattle on about her life's adventures and holding her hand, never demanding Elizabeth say anything in return. While other employees were confused by the odd pairing, Miss Jackie understood; "We all had mothers."  
  
When the accountant called Miss Lidoe’s ‘brother’ to get the next quarter’s payment, the man seemed genuinely surprised (and irritated) that she was still alive. “Hold on, let me find a credit card. The General won’t like it. He might send someone out for a blood sample, in case the project docs have any follow-up they want to do.”  
  
“Excuse me?” the accountant asked, but no explanation was forthcoming. Nor were any visitors. He got another $25,000 to take care of Elizabeth Lidoe and refrain from asking questions.

It was a month after that that Mrs Arthur died in her sleep, and Elizabeth regressed back into her shell, shielded by the pillow clutched to her chest. Miss Jackie tried to comfort her by leaving the pocket watch out of items sent the funeral home; "She would have wanted you to have it. You made her happy, and that's no small thing." But Elizabeth only winced, a sure sign that the pacemaker was trying to make her heart beat, whether she wanted it to or not.  
  
The first sign of any personality anyone ever saw was when a local volunteer came by with a yellow lab anxious to soak up the love of the love-starved residents. Something surprising happened: their mystery patient stood in the doorway, not clutching her pillow, watching the labrador’s movements, wringing her hands together like a child desperately trying to follow the admonition to not touch anything.  
  
“Do you want to pet him, Elizabeth?” Taking the leash from the volunteer, the nurse walked the dog over and watched an almost-smile cross the woman’s lips as she knelt down to run her hands over the golden fur and bury her face in the dog’s neck, seemingly lost in the sensation of the animal’s uncompromising joy.  
  
Amongst themselves, the nurses and orderlies started to bring their own animals in, one each day to keep the mute woman occupied. The oppressive atmosphere of despair that always surrounded her seemed to lift, and if anyone stopped to sit with Elizabeth, it wasn’t to dry her tears, but to take a few moments to pet the dog (or cat) of the day. They symptoms of her cardiac decompensation improved, and she started to eat more willingly, always to pocket a snack to feed her furry friends.  
  
Things changed, though, when a group of strangers, led by an Air Force Colonel, showed up and demanded to see “Dr Weir.”  
  
“Who?”  
  
No one had any idea who Dr Weir was until they were shown a picture of the patient they called “Elizabeth Lidoe”, or “Quiet E” among themselves.  
  
“Who is she to you?” Miss Jackie demanded, having been called over by the receptionist who was at a loss as to what protocol was in place for secret government patients.  
  
“She is our friend,” the darker-skinner woman explained gently.  
  
Jackie, who had a special fondness for the sad patient, was not impressed. “Nobody come to see her in nearly a year. Some friends.”  
  
The Colonel made to open his mouth in protest, but the woman, obviously used to her husband’s attitude, interjected quickly. “She was taken from us a long time ago, and we have been trying to find her ever since.”  
  
The stern nurse was not moved. “Air Force put her here. Your Colonel would already know that.”  
  
“Separate projects,” John growled, fists clenched. “So can we just see her? Please?”  
  
Careful assessment told her these people were not just going to go away. Nodding to an orderly, Miss Jackie let them go out back to the patio, where a familiar form sat on a bench under a tree, contented spaniel asleep in her lap.  
  
“Lizbeth.” John said it so softly, she didn’t notice until he took the far end of the bench, afraid she would bolt if he got any closer. There was pain and distrust in her eyes, but then she just turned her attention back to petting the dog and pretending they weren’t there. “Lizbeth, I – we – are really sorry about what happened. We’ve had a long fight with the SGC and IOA to find you. We want to take you home.”  
  
She hadn’t spoken in nearly a year; getting the words out was hard. “I don’t have a home.”  
  
Teyla crouched in front of her friend, taking Elizabeth’s hands in her own (much to the spaniel’s annoyance). “Please, Elizabeth, you know you have a home, on Atlantis, with us.”  
  
But she only shook her head. “Your home is there, with your husband and your children. It’s your past, and your future. You should be there. But I – I’ve been dead a long time.”  
  
“Look pretty alive to me,” Ronon noted archly.  
  
“Besides, we could really use your help,” Rodney added.  
  
Dubiousness crossed her features. “With what?”  
  
“Oh, well, you know…stuff.” It was lame and Rodney knew it; cue salvage comment. “But we missed you.”  
  
“You forgot about me a long time ago,” Elizabeth whispered, not as a recrimination, but simple statement of fact. “You can forget again.”  
  
John shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “We never forgot, Lizbeth. The nanites spent two years reminding us. And it…hurt, so much, every time you died again. Or something like you. So I’m…sorry, if you felt like we were distant. It was just too hard to think about losing you again. And we did, but we didn’t give up this time. Please don’t ask us to leave you behind again.”  
  
“Atlantis isn’t a home for the wayward and lost, John. You still have a mission there. You can't afford charity cases three million light-years from your funding sources.” If anyone knew that, it was the woman who once did the budget reports.  
  
“You let me stay.” Ronon was succinct.  
  
“And did you not once bring my people to Atlantis?” Teyla reminded her. “Were we not lost as well? Yet you gave us a home.”  
  
“That was a long time ago.” Standing up, Elizabeth stepped around the Athosian and headed towards the entrance, where a gaggle of staff (and a few residents) were watching.  
  
“God dammit, Elizabeth, will you just get over yourself?!” John’s words brought them all up short. “I know, you will never be the leader of Atlantis again; you will likely never negotiate an interstellar treaty again, or even teach at Georgetown, but…You are still you. You are still Dr Elizabeth Weir, and you still have great things to do.”  
  
Clutching the dog to her chest, feeling the old familiar pain, Elizabeth shook her head sadly. “Do you think it was all only professional ambition, John? Is that all I ever was to you?” She would never have John, or Simon, or even Mike Branton; it was all too late, and that agony was worse than the loss of any professional status.  
  
Teyla knew, though, but rather than any jealousy, all she felt was pity. “Elizabeth…” She closed the distance between them, lowering her voice. “Love can appear in many ways, often when we least expect it. But you have to be open to love’s possibilities, first. You have to be willing to live.”  
  
Carson finally stepped in, saying the words he’d been unable to say on Atlantis, because of how much seeing her reminded him of his own ill-fate. “Lass, I know what it’s like, coming back from the dead and finding that ya’ve lost everything. I’m not promising it’ll be easy; all I’m asking is that ya give us time ta prove ta ya – ta prove ta yerself – that ya still have a life worth living on Atlantis.”  
  
She couldn’t answer him right away, wanting it to be true so badly, yet unable to really believe him, either.  
  
Before she could answer, John stepped up to remove the dog from her arms and shoo him towards the door, tapping his radio. “ _Hammond_ , six to beam up.”  
  
A dozen people stood in the doorway in shock, staring at the empty space, no one willing to say anything, because if they did, well…who knows? Maybe they would disappear, too.  
  
“Hey guys, look at this.” Mr Michael was a newer orderly, always asking questions, interested in the life stories of the residents. He hadn’t gone to watch the troop confront Quiet E; instead he’d hopped on Wikipedia to look up ‘Elizabeth Weir’. “This says Dr Elizabeth Weir was an international diplomat and negotiator who died in 2007. How weird is that?”  
  
Miss Jackie nodded in agreement. “Always something weird when you get an Area 51 J-Doe showing up in this place.”


End file.
